What Humans Do
by petersgamora
Summary: She can't. She mustn't. She is Clara Oswald and she is the Impossible Girl. [Whouffaldi] [A series of ficlets/drabbles/one-shots]
1. Anything Could Happen

**A/N: So here's the result of the feels from "Deep Breath". I thoroughly blame Moffat because he always makes me cry and/or flail, which is just not okay. I adore the dynamic between Clara and Twelve. (I don't ship them romantically, you can't, guys) But Capaldi is so cute and so is Clara. So, I decided to do a series of ficlets or one-shots of Clara's adventures with Twelve or how they get used to each other? Let me know if I should continue?**

"Am I home?" She asks softly, turning about halfway to look towards the doors. She's aware of the faint smile on the curve of her lips-knows it's the thought of home that put it there. Home. Oh, how she's missed the place. Her heart twinges within its bony confines when she remembers the last she'd seen of it.

Her Doctor (the Doctor lies, she whispers to herself and repeats it like a mantra) had left her there with a promise he'd never planned to keep. She turns away now from this grey, aged man who has replaced her Chin Boy; she turns so he cannot see her losing the fight.

She closes her eyes to keep that secret, her secret, from his ancient eyes so cold and dark. The secret falls traitorously from the corner of her closed eye and rolls down her cheek. She wipes at it with a fisted hand and slowly opens her eyes to gaze at the grey skies through the glass upon the door. She misses home, now more than ever, and she is inclined to believe it's to do with this man in the Tardis.

"If you want it to be," he remarks with a suspiciously (she doesn't believe it because he is not the Doctor; he is not her Doctor) hopeful smile. The light of it reaches his eyes, and to herself, she notes this is the first time she's actually seen him smile that way. The smile on her own face has dissappeared now.

_"No, no. No...You don't get to..I smile first, and then you know it's safe to smile," she'd practically hissed as the Doctor started to laugh. He doesn't answer her, save for the fact that he certainly isn't smiling anymore._

"I'm sorry," she forms the words slowly and carefully when she speaks to him. "I'm sorry, I am terribly sorry. But I don't think I know who you are anymore." She _watches_ the light fade from his eyes then, and the part of her that isn't terrified-the smallest corner of her heart shrivels because of the sadness in his gaze. Sadness she's caused him. Her phone buzzes at her side, and she's felt it seconds before he tells her about it.

"You should prob'ly get that," he says softly, offering a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Might be your boyfriend."

"Shut up, I don't have a boyfriend," she mutters even as she leaves to answer it.

* * *

She wants to be angry at him.

She wants to rage and cry and curl in on herself because her world has come crashing down above her. The frail rasp of his voice in her ears is still too fresh, and the desperate plea she'd heard in it weighs on her heart. _"The man you are with, Clara, the man I hope you are with-he is scared more than anything you could possibly imagine," he'd whispered, "And he - he needs you. Please, hey, for me. Help him."_

But she can't. _I mustn't,_ she tells herself. She is Clara Oswald and she is the Impossible Girl. If she is anything, she's strong. What else could you call a girl that's survived everything from age-old parasites to the Great Intelligence to Cybermen and Daleks. She _was_ afraid in that moment when the Doctor (her Doctor) lay dying at her feet as evil undid every shred of good in his life. She _was_ afraid, and she still jumped, and in one instant, she saved him. Every echo of her saved him at every dark day throughout his existence. It would be a betrayal of her true purpose if she denied him now.

All these thoughts run through her mind in the moment that she studies his lined face through her teary eyes. She studies the frowns and creases lining his face and distant cold of his eyes. She's even a bit (ashamedly) surprised that when she peers closer beneath she can see the sadness, the lost look within them.

It's the moment when the first smile she's given him-the first smile this face saw-that his brows arch just a little. (Surprised? She decides on 'wary'). She rushes him, then. Throws her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder. She can't see just now, but his arms stretch out in front of him, bent at the elbow. He's struggling for words, stammering that he isn't quite sure he's the hugging type. She laughs at that.

"I'm not sure you have a vote."

**A/N: Thoughts? Whatever's on your mind, tell me in a review!**


	2. You Wear Your Flaws On Your Sleeve

**A/N: This is based off of my guess of what will happen in the next episode (the one airing tomorrow). Mark Gatiss may do this, or he may not. I have no idea, and this is just my idea. It's also based off of how I see the Doctor behaving this season. Twelve!whump (sorry I just whump everyone)**

**And I just like the idea of Twelve calling her Miss Oswald. I don't know. **

Clara's first wish upon setting foot in the blue box (the one she calls home now) is to throw her arms about the consul and thank her. Thank her because the Old Girl means blissful escape from the terrible grating voices of the Daleks and worse off, the explosions and screams stuck on a loop in Clara's mind. The screams of the dying echo in her skull, and she can still hear the crash of metal on metal as the ship itself eternally implodes within her memory. She tosses her head as if the motion will shake loose the haunting memories and stumbles her way up the stairs to steady herself on the railing. Her dark eyes slide toward the Doctor as he dashes about the consul, pulling at (if she counted properly) four different levers. The old man freezes then, his face going blank for a frightening moment before his cross eyebrows furrow in what appears to be confusion. He pushes one of the levers back into place and lifts his head when the Tardis makes her vortex sounds.

"Clara?" When he is met with silence, his hearts beat just a little too fast because his previous incarnation was right. He's more scared now than any hell the girl before him could scheme of. He's bloody well scared and by God, he isn't sure if he's doing things right. He looks up now, afraid something's happened to her to prohibit her from answering. It's when he realizes she isn't moving (correction: hasn't moved) from her spot on the railing. Her hands grip the metal so tightly he can see the whites of her knuckles, and her eyes are fixed on unseen, distant space. The sight jars him.

"Cla-_ra_," he tries again, hating the way his Scottish accent tore her name apart. He's crossed the distance between them and reaches out toward her with a gnarled, trembling hand. When his finger barely brushes her elbow, she recoils violently and her eyes rivet on him-in that moment, he watches the haze lift from her eyes to be replaced with wide-eyed, unharnessed fear glinting in her brown depths. 

He tries (he honestly tries) to ignore the hurt her sharp movement caused him. Yet he can't help feeling it. 

To distract himself because he is never one to wallow, he settles himself on fixing what has been broken. He has always been good at that. "What's wrong, Miss Oswald?" 

_"You, Doctor,"_ she wants to say. _"You are wrong. This is wrong,"_ is the first thought upon her mind. She's got to actually close her lips to keep the terrible words from falling past them. She isn't looking at him while these thoughts are going through her, but she is now. "You can't fix-" _You can't fix this. _The words die in their infancy when the look upon his face tells her she's misspoken. The very look itself tells her that those words she'd fought to bite back had traitorously slipped out. "No, that's not what I meant. Doctor, it's not, listen. You listen to me," she remarks quickly, hating the storm in his blue gaze. "Listen to me, that's not...it's not.." 

"It's not what you expected?" he finishes in a calm voice. For some reason, this scares her considerably more than if he'd flown at her in a rage. "It's not what he'd do? Did he do that, Clara?" He continues, talking faster and a tad louder as he becomes surer of himself, "Did he have to make decisions like I just did? Answer me, please." 

"He killed his own people _because of_ a decision he had to make," she forms the words so quietly they barely make a whisper. 

"Thought he did. I know. Because _I'm_ him," he corrects her, snapping out the last bit. "I saved them." 

"You didn't save _them_!" she cries now, her voice breaking on "them". They both know she doesn't mean the Time Lords."You could have, but you didn't. You decided it'd be better for the universe if you blew up the whole bloody ship, Daleks, people and all. You hate them, the Daleks," she pauses briefly to catch her breath and brushes away the whisps of hair that have fallen across her forehead. "What was it that one said to you? 'I see beauty, divinity, hatred'?" 

He chooses (wisely) not to open his mouth. He doesn't see fit to, given that he lacks a proper response. One of the things he's realizes about his new self is his practicality. He doesn't, for the most part, make excuses or lie without necessity. Without a lie to tell, he's only left with truth. "You know what happened during the war, do you not?" he asks her, softer now. When she nods slowly, he continues, "You know why I did what I did." 

"There was a war and many people had suffered from it, I know," she answers. "There was great need for what you thought you did, but today. Now. There was no need. That's exactly what I'm tryna to get across to ya, Doctor."

He stares at her with his brows furrowed, with an intensity to his cold blue gaze as his great mind works to decipher her meaning. "I don't think I quite get what you're getting at."

She sighs.

"Your hatred. Your hatred for the Daleks was, I think," she says, crossing her arms as she does so, "what pushed you into what you've done. You told me before we left we were going 'into darkness'. This act, that's the darkness you were driven to. Tempted into, if I dare. But you can't see that. It's your flaw, and you can't.." She abandons that part, fearful of how he'd react and instead trys, "...I have flaws, you have flaws. Every creature born has them. It's just a matter of seein' em."

The Doctor stands in thoughtful silence, averting his gaze to the grate beneath his shoes as he absorbs her words and contemplates them. Before the memories they withdraw grow too sad to bear, he speaks up, "You humans flaunt them. You don't bother ta' hide them, the flaws. Ah don't understand that. Yeh want tah be perfect, but flaunt your imperfections. Wear 'em on your sleeve, practically. Are you saying I hide mine, Clara?" A moment passes between a human fearing for life and cursing her honesty and a contemplative ageless god. "I won't throw ya out the vortex if ya do, just continue being honest with me. That's good. Honest is good."

"Yes, Doctor. That's what I'm trying to kindly, gently, in a not-angry sort of way," she whispers the last bit a little nervously and winces. "to tell you. Some of us try to hide them, and some flaunt them. It's different from person to person. It doesn't make you evil. Really it's just about being too proud and the like."

"I see, then. I've got a question now, and it's the real question. The one we ought tah be asking," he remarks after a period of thought. "If I can't succumb to the darkness my...flaw...pulls me into, then do I not have you to pull me away from it? We've clearly seen today I can't do it on mah own."

_Do I not have you to pull me away from it?_ Clara contemplates the question he has put to her. She's practically preached to him about not losing control and now she's faced with a rare (because face it, his pride never lets him do this) and quiet plea for help.

Does he have her?

Does he even really need her?

"But do you need _me_?" she counters, narrowing her gaze as she watches to await his answer.

**A/N: This is a two-parter! Part One aka You Wear Your Flaws On Your Sleeve is done, and Part Two aka There's a Hole In My Soulwill be posted tomorrow, before the episode ofc. **

**I really, really, love writing Twelve and Clara! They are so interesting and complex and beautiful to write. I love it.**

**Thoughts? Whatever's on your mind, tell me in a review. **


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